Two web designers quote you for the same site. One wants 1,200 euro once. The other wants 57 euro a month. Most people choose by gut feeling, then find out in month eight what they actually agreed to.
Here is the arithmetic over two years, and the part that never makes it into the quote.
The two models, without the sales talk
A one off build means you pay for the work and you get a finished site. What happens to it afterwards is yours to sort out, unless you agreed something else in writing.
A monthly plan means you pay a fixed amount and the site stays someone else’s job. Hosting, updates, security patches, the small changes you ask for. The build cost is spread across the payments instead of landing in one invoice.
Both are reasonable. They suit different businesses. The sales pages for both are equally slippery.
What you actually pay for with a one off build
You pay for design, build and launch. That is usually where the quote stops.
Hosting is separate and you pay it every month anyway, to whoever hosts the site. The domain renews every year. WordPress, the theme and the plugins need updating, and when an update breaks something, someone has to fix it. Add a new service to your list, change your prices, swap a photo, and that is a change request. Most builders bill those by the hour.
None of that is a scam. It is just the part of the cost that sits outside the number on the quote, and it does not go away.
What you actually pay for with a monthly plan
You pay for the same build, plus the work that comes after it. Hosting, the SSL certificate, backups, updates, and a set amount of small changes every month.
The honest catch is that you keep paying. Stop paying and, depending on the agreement, the site can go dark. That is the real question to ask, and we get to it below.
The second catch is that “small changes included” means whatever the person selling it decides it means. Get it in writing.
Who owns the site in month 13
This is the question that separates a fair monthly plan from a trap, and almost nobody asks it before signing.
Three answers exist in the market. Some builders hand over the files and the domain after an agreed number of payments, and the site is genuinely yours. Some keep ownership forever, so the day you leave you start from nothing. Some never say, which in practice is the second answer.
Ask it in plain words: after twenty four months, if I stop paying, what do I walk away with? If the answer is vague, you have your answer.
On our plans the site is yours after twenty four payments. Files and domain, handed over, no argument.
The 24 month arithmetic
Take the two quotes from the top of this page and run them out over two years.
The monthly plan at 57 euro comes to 1,368 euro over 24 months. Hosting, SSL, backups, updates and the monthly changes are inside that number.
The one off build at 1,200 euro comes to 1,200 euro, plus hosting for 24 months, plus the domain, plus whatever the fixes and change requests cost you along the way.
Run honest numbers and the two land within a couple of hundred euro of each other. That surprises people who expected one to be obviously cheaper.
So the money is not the deciding factor. The deciding factor is who does the work when something needs doing. If you have someone in house who enjoys WordPress updates, buy the build once. If you do not, you are going to pay for that work either way, and the only question is whether you pay for it in advance at a fixed price or by the hour in a hurry.
The third option almost everyone tries first
Before either quote, most business owners try to build it themselves on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress.
It is the cheapest option on paper and sometimes it works out. More often it costs two or three weekends, ends up half finished, and sits there for a year with the wrong phone number on it. That is not a failure of skill. It is that the software is the easy part, and the writing, the photos and the structure are not.
If you have tried this and the site is still not live, you already know which of the three options is not for you.
What a normal month actually looks like
Here is what the monthly work really is, because agencies describe it in words that mean nothing.
Most months, nothing. The site sits there and does its job. Some months WordPress or a plugin gets an update, it gets applied, and if something shifts it gets fixed before you notice. Then you send a message: new price list, a new service, a photo of a job you finished, opening hours over the holidays. It gets done and you get told when it is live.
That is it. Anyone who describes it as more than that is selling you something.
When a one off build makes sense
Pay once if your content almost never changes, if you or someone on your team can handle hosting and updates, if you would rather own the files outright from day one, and if you have the full amount available now without it hurting.
A five page site for a business with a stable offer is a good candidate. Build it, host it, leave it alone.
When a monthly plan makes sense
Pay monthly if the cash matters more than the total, if you want someone to call when something breaks, if your prices, services or photos change through the year, or if you have been burned before by a site that went stale six months after launch.
Most trades, salons, restaurants and small service businesses are in this group, and it is not because they cannot afford the build. It is because nobody in the business wants to own the maintenance.
Six questions to ask before you sign anything
Whoever you go with, ask these in writing and keep the answers.
- After how many payments is the site mine, and what exactly do I receive?
- If I cancel, does the site stay online, and for how long?
- Who owns the domain, and is it registered in my name?
- What counts as a small change, and how many per month?
- What is the response time when something breaks?
- Is there a minimum term, and what does leaving early cost?
Six short answers. If they arrive quickly and in plain words, that tells you more about the next two years than the portfolio does.
What we do, and where we are different
We build the site first and you look at it finished before you pay anything. If it is not right, you walk away and it has cost you nothing. That is the whole risk taken off your side of the table, and it is the part most quotes will not give you.
After that it is 57 euro a month, the site is yours after twenty four payments, and up to three small changes a month are included. Whatever price you start on is the price you keep, even when it goes up for new clients.
We sell it both ways, and the two numbers in this article are our own. Monthly is 57 euro with nothing up front, and the site is yours after twenty four payments. Buying it once is 1,200 euro and it is yours the day it goes live, with hosting and later changes on you. There is no contract on the monthly plan, so you can stop any month you like. Both prices are on the pricing page and the sites we have built are on the portfolio page, where you can open each one and check it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
If I cancel after three months, what happens to my site?
With us, billing stops and the site stays online for a few days so nothing disappears on you overnight, then it comes down. Before twenty four payments the site is not yet yours, and we say that upfront rather than burying it in a clause. Ask every other builder the same question before you sign, because the answers vary a lot.
Is the subscription not more expensive in the end?
Over two years, barely. Run the numbers above with your own quotes. The gap is usually small enough that the real decision is about who does the work, not about the total.
What does “small changes included” actually mean?
For us: text, prices, photos, opening hours, adding or removing a service, swapping a phone number. What it does not mean is a new page design, a shop, a booking system or a rebuild. Those are quoted separately. Ask any builder to define it the same way.
Is there a minimum term?
With us, no. You can stop any month and the billing stops with it. The twenty four payments matter for ownership, not for locking you in. Stop before then and the site is not yours yet, so it comes down. Plenty of builders do use minimum terms, so this is worth asking in writing.
Who handles updates and security?
On a monthly plan, the person you pay. On a one off build, you, unless you arranged a separate maintenance agreement. This is the single most common gap between what people think they bought and what they actually bought.
The short version
Over two years the two models cost roughly the same. Pay once if you can handle the upkeep yourself and want to own it from day one. Pay monthly if you would rather it stayed someone else’s job. Whichever you choose, get the ownership and cancellation terms in writing before you pay anything.
If you want to see what your site would look like before you spend anything, send us a message. We build it first and you decide after.
